[kristopolous]

I went to a conservative Catholic all boys high school 25 years ago so I've got zero idea what teenagers are doing these days.

I presume in the age of smartphones, the average teenager probably knows more than I do about minority sexual identities and practices.

If I became a 14 year old tomorrow I'd probably find it so shocking and foreign.

[kelseyfrog]

Parent of a queer 17yr old here who's admittedly special interest is gender and sexuality(his not necessarily mine). One of the differences I've observed is the appropriation of therapeutic terminology - gaslighting, toxic, etc. Maybe This is an over-generalization from specifics, but this terminology seems to have made its way into young people's lexicon with a fluency not present in people my age (and completely absent from most people my parent's age). Along the way they've taken on a bit more, um, flexible definitions. Whereas I might be more exacting in their use, young people seem to have more expansive definitions.

I wouldn't necessarily call it shocking or foreign, but more like a highly specific subculture, which in some ways it is, but it has, because of its very nature, the potential to become the dominate culture or evolve into the dominate culture with time. I suppose this is where the "stranger in their own land" phrase lies, and with it "adapt or die."

[freitzkriesler]

My first boyfriend was in high school and what I miss most about those days was being gay wasnt a status symbol but just a relationship status. Neither him nor I were into "pride" which is annoying at best and insufferable open sexual degeneracy at the worst.

Seeing what's in our public schools today is a comedy of cringe and highly manufactured, on par with the 60s hippie culture.

It's truly a shame.